


No Matter What You Think, Your Lips Are Sealed Shut

by Thinker109



Series: Drabble Time! [21]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Angst, Drabble Sequence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24718333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thinker109/pseuds/Thinker109
Summary: AU where Heinz took a vow of silence near the end of his and Charlene's marriage.
Series: Drabble Time! [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673932
Comments: 42
Kudos: 38





	1. Your Vow Is Broken Now, What Are You Without It? An Evil Scientist.

You’d taken a vow of silence. When was that? Five years ago? Six? You haven’t felt any need to speak since that first month. It’s better this way. No one needs to put up with your rough, squeaky voice, no one wants to hear what you have to say.

You’re fine. It’s been worse.

You’d secretly hoped the silence of your voice would silence your brain.

~~You don’t deserve a voice.~~

You don’t need a voice to keep producing inators.

But now? You need one for your schemes, your backstories… After all, who else is going to make them known?


	2. They Are Open, But You Still Can't Say A Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's always hard.

It’s uncomfortable to talk after all this time. Your speech is halted, stuttering. You find yourself speaking in German more often lately.

It’s so hard. You want to scream, open your mouth so wide, spill it all out. All you can manage is a one-syllable word.

“Help,” you squeak into the dark silence of your room. No one can hear the gravelly croak your voice has become. Are you glad? You clear your throat again. And again. And put your head in your hands, hearing the faint whirring of metal gears, barely louder than your halting breath.

Are you crying?


	3. Silence Is A Heavy Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Please", you beg, "Please thwart my silence."

Perry the Platypus waits for you to begin your monologue. Today’s scheme is about your vow. The broken one. Your tense silence is practically a backstory in and of itself.

You’re not strong enough to talk about the ‘why’s, at least not this time. 

You step forward and he flinches, unused to the silence permeating the air. 

You try to open your mouth but your jaw won’t move, stuck in place.

You untie Perry the Platypus and point at your machine.

Your mouth moves but no sound is coming out. _Thwart me, please,_ you try to say with your eyes.


	4. Silence And Practicality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You've taken away your ability to hurt other people, but for some reason you feel like you're the one in pain now.

Your hands are shaking horribly, but your voice isn’t, tucked safe inside you where no one will be forced to hear it. It hurts, being unable to share yourself. You only took that vow a week ago and already you’ve broken your promise twice.

Unsurprisingly, no one has noticed your almost-complete silence so far. You didn’t really think they’d care much, but it hurts, knowing that not one person cares about your thoughts.

You would’ve sealed your lips, but with the amount of times you've almost drowned the past few years, you don’t want to risk having any airways closed.


	5. If You Want, You Can Go

You always talk, always monologue, because you _just don’t care anymore_. If someone doesn’t want to hear what you have to say they can just _leave_. They _will_ leave, eventually. So why bother hiding behind a vow? Why bother doing anything at all?

They _don’t care_. No one does, no one will. And that’s fine, because you only care a little bit when they leave. Well, a lot, but it doesn’t matter.

No one cares what you have to say. You’re just reverting back to your old ways, talking to yourself in the mirror again. After all, _no one cares_.


	6. Fill Up Your Glass, Noise And Firecrackers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The glaring void where his voice used to be is hard to fill.
> 
> 50 word drabble for this one.

You used to listen to podcasts and music, so much music, during the time of your silence. It filled up the space your voice couldn’t, expanding in your head, pushing all the- the _thoughts_ out. Turn the volume up high, sit down, and work. 

Sometimes it helped with the emptiness.


	7. Just One Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But there are many more hidden beyond your silence.

“What do you mean you’ve taken a vow of silence!? Why would you do that?” Charlene asks incredulously. You start writing on a notepad, stop, erase, try again.

It’s hard to put into words. Which is one of the many reasons why you stopped talking anyways.

_It's hard,_ you write.


	8. Why Can't You Take A Breath?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A breath of untainted air?

It feels nice to have the freedom now, to mumble to yourself while you work. You can grunt at stubborn bolts, think out loud about some harder bits of code… 

~~You still feel hollowed out inside from your silent years. Too empty.~~

… Fill the space with your voice, however horrible it sounds, because it's better than nothing, it's better than having no safety, no security, just the endless barrage of thoughts coming and going. 

Anything is better than being swept up in your insecurity until you don’t know which way is up, how to breathe.

It's so hard to breathe.


	9. It Always Hurts, Doesn't It?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So why is the pain different this time?

You’re three months in the silence. The divorce has been filed, all the legal actions finished. At least you’ll get time with Vanessa every weekend…

It’s so hard to cry silently. You push down a wracking sob.

Everything is okay.

You’ll be fine.

You _are_ fine.

You’re not fine.

You glance over at your blueprints and push down the bile. You don’t feel like coding or building today.

You just can’t.

... 

_Gott, it **hurts**_.

Did you say that out loud? You hope not. Your promises are already paper-thin.

... 

Plus, no one wants to hear about all of your pain anyways.


	10. Need To Hear Some Sounds That Recognize The Pain In Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now

One of Vanessa’s ‘goth’ songs is playing faintly from another room and you recognize it as one she introduced you to earlier. It’s not really in your taste but you don’t listen to music very often lately and can’t help but nod along. From what you can hear of the lyrics, it’s about a girl who got her heart broken in school and got reprimanded by the teachers for crying. 

It reminds you a bit of that one time--

Ignoring the memory you try to sing along, quietly of course, but your voice keeps breaking. Cracking and stuttering over and _over_ , until it’s all you can do to focus on getting sound out of your battered throat.

The music has stopped.

Now you’re murmuring along to the song in your head.

It’s similar to Vanessa's music, the cracks in your voice shattering something, shards piercing your eyes.

No tears come, of course, but your throat feels looser, your notes stronger, until you don’t _need_ tears to take the pain somewhere else, because you’re _putting_ it there, you’re taking it out, word by word, sound by sound--

It still _hurts_ though, pain lancing through your whole body with every damn syllable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and summary from Bittersweet Symphony (specifically the GAMPER & DADONI remix)


	11. Divorce

“Heinz.” Charlene sighs your name, dropping it suddenly, like a heavy suitcase.

You look up from your eggs. They’ve gone cold now, you haven’t felt like eating in a long time.

Charlene absentmindedly stares into her coffee. The particles that had settled down now swirl upwards, reminding you a bit of that sandstorm in Africa…

“We should take a break.” She looks up at you. “From each other, I mean.” 

Sighing heavily, she sets down her coffee glass. “You’re not… You’re not the same man I married, Heinz. It’s not even the whole silence thing, You’re just…” She grabs at the thick air, searching for a word.

The same air is now settling heavily on your shoulders. You want to throw up.

“Almost monochrome, in a way” She finally decides.

Well, you’re most certainly not wearing all one color.

“Not-- not _monochrome_ , but you seem so… dull…” Charlene sighs again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t really want to have this… conversation… I was really hoping you’d just somehow-- snap out of it or something.” She makes an expression that you don’t have enough energy to articulate.

She grips her glass, frustrated, maybe at you. “I mean, for God’s sake, you don’t even seem to enjoy spending time with _Vanessa_!” 

The room tilts sickeningly and you grab onto the table, white-knuckled. You hadn’t-- hadn’t realized that-- remembered… It feels a bit as if you just sped through a loop on a rollercoaster, heart in your throat and stomach in your heels. 

Charlene looks at you with a grimace. “It’s so hard to just _talk_ to you, Heinz. I want to _understand_. I want to _help_. There’s no need to make it so difficult. Why can’t we just be the way we were before?” She pleads.

But you can’t answer. You don’t-- You _can’t_ \--

You knew this would happen eventually, but this time-- was it all your fault? Of course it was your fault-- but-- and-- 

“What about Vanessa?” You want to say. But you know the truth. She’s better off with Charlene anyways. Charlene said so herself, you hadn’t even realised that you’ve been ignoring-- no, _pushing_ _away_ Vanessa--

And Charlene too, you realize dimly, suddenly all the times you were too tired to talk come back to you, sending the room into another spinning rush of color.

You grip the table harder, feeling it slip out of your sweaty hands. Sweaty? You don’t remember installing sweat glan--

“Heinz.” Her voice breaks through your train of thought even though you can barely hear it over the loud pumping in your ears.

You look up, the room still whirling in the background, out of focus.

Your mouth is dry but you know what’s coming next.

“Heinz. We need to get a divorce.”

The look in her eyes is not what you expected. There’s no harshness, no distant cold. Her eyes are devoid of anything except pity. You don’t deserve pity.

She stands up and leaves you alone with a cup of cold coffee.


	12. Chapter 12

A man who is trying to relearn to make any sort of sound because some selfish part of him needs the world to hear.

A man who chokes on his words, and gags, and retches and _just can’t get them out_.

A man vomiting yellow-white liquid into a toilet more well-kept than he is.

A man who feels he doesn't even deserve pain because that, at least, keeps him from floating away into the endless sky.

A man who feels nothing but the bitter fire in his stomach and the acid in his throat, and the pain behind his eyes because he hasn't cried in so long, and the stinging in his head that comes when you just _don't want to_ anymore, and the aching dullness in his neck from leaning over the toilet for an hour and all this man can think about is how he doesn't deserve this pain.

A man who looks in the mirror and sees a broken reflection, expressionless eyes almost hidden by the reflection of the too-bright fluorescent lights, dark purple shadows under his eyes almost becoming as dark as the shiny beads of blood from his chapped, bitten lips.

A man who is heaving and retching in this bathroom, too pristine and pure even for him and suddenly he's choking on his own spittle and he can't remember how to breathe and he's thinking _"Is this it? Is this the end?"_ But he still can't get a single word out and he knows that he doesn't deserve a better way to die but he always wished-- and he's finally coughed out the rust-colored phlegm, tears streaming down his cheeks, sticky and painful.

A man who can't remember how to breathe, his mouth is open but he just can't suck in any air, begging, pleading his rippling reflection in the clouded water to teach him how to breathe but there's no answer, there's never an answer, there's never an answer.

A man whose gagging tastes like bitter lemons under his tongue, a man who wants it all to _just stop_ but he knows that even that is too good for him.

The only ones watching him are the sickly off-white walls and yellowed tiles, fine cracks weaving in between, cutting into his bony knees but he doesn't even notice, and his reflection, ever judgmental, looking at him from the mirror, silent as he is.

A man who took a vow of silence.

A man who wishes-- _begs_ to speak again but some part of him just won’t let go of the relative safety of not ever never letting anyone know what he wants or feels or needs because if they know then everything will be wrong _wrong_ **_wrong_** and he doesn’t want anyone to ever know except maybe his reflection and anyone who he knows for sure doesn’t hate him but he knows that that’s an impossible thing to wish for--

A man who has to get back to work because he is _fine_.


	13. Wouldn't It Be Funny?

A man is sleeping, a sliver of pale moonlight inching away, afraid to touch him. 

A man writhing underneath his thin blanket, eyes scrunched shut. Not screaming, never screaming. He’s too used to the thick blanket of silence to break it. 

A man whose arms creep up along his sides, listening to the faint electrical signals from his subconscious. 

A man who hates himself so much that even when he sleeps his arms keep slithering up at a steady pace to a neck that looks frail and thin and altogether too easy to grab. 

A man who wakes up far too often, being choked by himself, by his own mind, and all he can think is how funny it is, how  _ laughable _ that even after the whole world has tried to kill him he'd die by his own two arms. 

A man who laughs uncontrollably even as he can't breathe, his hands still tightening because some electrical signals in him keep saying "Wouldn't it be funny? Wouldn't it be  _ just hilarious _ to die this way?" 

A man whose rationality finally wins out and he goes about his day as per usual, a ring of purpling bruises around his pale neck.


End file.
